Fife Place-name Data

Sypsies

Sypsies CRA S NO603079 1 364 56m SWF

(Alan of Erskine of) Sipsa 1452 RMS ii no. 548
(lands of) Sipsa 1452 RMS ii no. 548 [in the constabulary of Crail (Carale)]
Sypseis 1499 Crail Register no. 67 [Sypsies lies to the north of the lands of *Little Peat Field (Lytilpat Feyld)]
Schipseis 1511 RMS ii no. 3587 [to John Lumsden of Airdrie (Ardre) CRA]
Sepseis 1517 Crail Register no. 20 [marches given; see discussion, below]
terras suas vocatas Cipseis 1548 RMS iv no. 259 [‘his lands called Sypsies’, to Margaret Seton (Seyton), daughter of Andrew Seton (Seytoun) of Parbroath (Perbroith) CRC for her lifetime, and to her heirs when she marries; ‘in the barony of Airdrie’ (in baronia de Ardrye)]
Sipsies c.1560 s Purves 154 [£1]
Seipsis c.1560 s Assumption, 177 [to Haddington Priory, teinds of Ardrie, Sypsies and the crofts of Crail (Craill), 21 bolls bere, 21 bolls oats, 6 bolls meal]
Sipseis 1594 RMS vi no. 100
Sypseis 1610 Retours (Fife) no. 206 [David Merche, £60 per annum ‘from the lands of Airdrie CRA and Sypsies’ (de terris de Ardrie et Sypseis)]
Sipsie 1654 Blaeu (Pont) East Fife
Sypsies 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
terras de Sypsis 1663 Retours (Fife) no. 938
Sypses 1691 Retours (Fife) no. 1321 [Margaret Philip, the lands and barony of Airdrie and Sypsies]
Sipsys 1753 Roy sheet 19, 5
Nether Sipses 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Upper Sipses 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Sypsies 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn

It is not even clear what language this name was coined in, let alone what it might mean. The earliest

The extent of the lands of Sypsies is described in the 1517 charter of sale to Crail Collegiate Kirk by John Lumsden of Airdrie CRA of an annual rent of six merks ‘from all my lands of Sypsies with its pertinents lying in my barony of Airdrie and in the sheriffdom of Fife, between the lands of West Barns CRA and Troustrie CRA to the west, and the lands of *Little Peat Field[121] to the south, and along the burgh of Crail’s own muir on the north side, and the common loan of Crail on the east side ...’[122]

This place-name appeared in printed volume 3

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